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Labour Party (Kazulia)
|Website = arbeiderpartiet.kz|politics = Politics of Kazulia|political parties = Political Parties in Kazulia|elections = Elections in Kazulia|Seats2 Title = Cabinet|Seats2 = |Seats3 Title = Fylke legislatures|Seats3 = }} The Labour Party (Kazuliansk: Arbeiderpartiet) was a Kazulian democratic socialist political party founded in 3882 by Mathias Nilsen, who became the party's inaugural leader. It was last led by Henrik Pedersen, who presided over the merger of the Labour Party and the Socialist People's Party in 3917. The Labour Party was in principle committed to socialism, though in practice the party was split between socialist hard-liners and moderates. It tended to support socially liberal positions. Until it entered terminal decline in its final years, the Labour Party enjoyed strong links with the trade union movement. Ideology The Labour Party was self-described and described by others as socialist, although some members rejected hard-line socialism in practice. On the other hand, there was a strong hard-left faction which openly espoused Metzist ideology. The Labour Party was also socially liberal, supporting causes such as LGBT rights and feminism. During the leadership of Hanne Endal (3902 - 3911) it noticeably moderated its policy positions and enjoyed a second period of electoral success, but since 3911 returned to its more left-wing roots, especially under the leadership of its final National Chair Henrik Pedersen. Structure The Labour Party's highest governing body was the National Conference, which determined policy and elected officeholders (except for the party's National Chair and Deputy Chair, who were elected by the entire membership then announced at a meeting of the National Conference). The National Conference generally met annually, with additional meetings when necessary. The National Chair presided over the National Conference. The National Executive, consisting of senior party officeholders, had the same powers as the National Conference, except that its decisions, made in the name of the National Conference when it was not in session, could be overruled. It also had responsibility for administration. The National Chair acted as presiding offcer. The Labour Parliamentary Faction consisted of every member of the Labour Party who was also a member of the Storting. Although in theory the Parliamentary Faction was bound by policies determined by the National Conference and Executive, in practice, it had significant influence over policy-making. The Parliamentary Faction was led by the National Chair of the party, unless he or she was a Minister or not a member of the Storting, in which case it was led by the Deputy Chair. If the Deputy Chair is also thus disqualified, the Parliamentary Faction elected its own floor leader. At the county level, the Labour Party was organised along similar lines, with a County Chair, Conference and Executive, and a County Council Faction instead of a Parliamentary Faction. The local branches of the party were more loosely organised, although their organs also tended to mimic those of the national organisation. Throughout most of its existence, te Labour Party had strong links with the trade union movement, which provided a large number of its activists and much of its funding. Many Labour politicians also had roots in the union movement, including its founder, Mathias Nilsen. However, Labour's association with the unions proved controversial, with rival parties claiming that it stood for the sectional vested interests of union leaders. Factions The Labour Party was divided, broadly speaking, into two main factions. The hard-left faction, which included figures such as former Statsminister Martin Sæterbø and the party's former National Chair, Jonas Hogstad, advocated a purist form of socialism which supports the nationalisation of industry. Some members of the hard-left were adherents of Metzism, although there were only a few outright communists. On the other hand, the moderate faction, led by ex-Statsminister Hanne Endal, the party's former National Chair, and former Finance Minister Julia Olsson, was more centrist. Although most claimed to be socialists, observers characterised the moderate faction as being more social democratic due to its rejection of elements of socialism such as the nationalisation of industry. Nevertheless, even moderates were strong supporters of government intervention and a welfare state. Both the hard-left and moderate factions were socially liberal. There was also a small conservative or populist faction which was, in reality, conservative only relative to the social liberalism of the rest of the party. Most conservatives were Hosian socialists. The conservative faction, despite having grown somewhat since the decline the of the Kazulian Farmers' Party, was numerically small and has never provided a prominent Labour politician, with the possible exception of Elias Bergli. A number of Labour politicians did not identify with either major faction or with the conservative faction. Most of them positioned themselves ideologically between the two main factions. Among them were former National Chairs Mathias Nilsen (a long-serving Statsminister) and Elise Larsen. Senior non-aligned figures were often called upon to mediate between the often clashing hard-left and moderate factions. History Founding The Labour Party was founded in 3882 by Mathias Nilsen, a prominent trade union leader, in response to the decline of left-wing politics in Kazulia. The intention of the party was to act as the electoral wing of the union movement and also to promote socialism more generally. In its early years, the party, led by Nilsen, faced opposition from Venstre, the governing centrist party, and Hambro Reform List, led by the flamboyant media executive Ludvig Hambro. Nilsen and Sæterbø governments In 3885, the party contested its first general election and was able to form a minority government under Nilsen's leadership. The first Nilsen government (3885 - 3889) implemented sweeping economic reforms including the nationalisation of vast swathes of the Kazulian economy and a significant increase in government intervention in the economy in other ways, such as through regulation and expansionary fiscal policy. It also banned political donations. However, despite increasing its seat share, the Labour Party was defeated in the 3889 election after the establishment of a right-wing minority government led by Gustav Westerberg, who controversially attempted to prosecute senior Labour politicians for alleged crimes committed while in office. Shortly after the commencement of legal proceedings, Westerberg was removed from office by a motion of no confidence, and Nilsen returned to the post of Statsminister. The subsequent second and third Nilsen governments (3891 - 3893 and 3893 - 3896, respectively) were significantly less ambitious than the first. However, in his second term as Statsminister, Nilsen was more electorally successful, and Labour achieved its best-ever electoral performance in the 3893 general election. In 3896, Nilsen resigned as Labour leader, becoming the only leader of the party to determine the time and manner of their departure from the leadership. He was succeeded Martin Sæterbø, his deputy and long-time Finance Minister, who was elected unopposed to the leadership, having long been seen as Nilsen's heir apparent. In large part due to his divisiveness, hard-line views and highly partisan manner, Sæterbø led the party to a disastrous defeat in the 3897 general election and resigned. Opposition and shift to the centre Sæterbø was succeeded by former Deputy Statsminister Elise Larsen, defeating two rivals including the leading moderate Julia Olsson. Though Larsen did not affiliate herself with either of the two major factions in the party, she was perceived as leaning towards the left. She was unable to broaden the Labour Party's electoral appeal, resulted in a second serious defeat for the party in 3901. Nevertheless, Larsen chose to remain in office, claiming that she deserve two terms to revive the party after its electoral implosion in 3897. However, although she was not openly challenged for the leadership, within a year the party had become so disillusioned with her leadership that she chose to resign in 3902. Hanne Endal, Labour's finance spokesperson, was confirmed as Larsen's successor in an uncontested leadership ballot. She was the first, and to date only, Labour leader to emerge from the moderate faction of the party; all other leaders have either been leftists or unaligned. Although Endal was resented by hard-liners for her efforts to shift the Labour Party towards the political centre, she was more electorally successful than her immediate predecessors, achieving Labour's first seat increase in a decade in the early general election of 3903. Return to government Following the election, she was appointed Finance Minister in the governing grand coalition. When Labour withdrew from the coalition in 3906, another early election was called. The Labour Party more than doubled its representation, and Endal, leading a centre-left coalition, became Labour's third Statsminister. In government, she pursued a markedly more centrist line than previous Labour governments, even contemplating public funding of non-government schools, which resulted in an internal party crisis. Labour lost seats in the 3910 general election, but still hoped to be able to form government. However, these hopes were disappointed, but Endal insisted on remaining leader nonetheless. Division and decline However, after what was perceived by leftists as a weak response to government policies, Endal was challenged for the leadership by her deputy, veteran left-winger Jonas Hogstad, in 3911. Hogstad won by a clear margin, but he was unable to present a credible alternative to the government or to unite the party. Consequently, he resigned after just seventeen months. After Hogstad's resignation, Halvor Sæterbø, the son of Martin Sæterbø, was elected unopposed to the leadership. Although a leftist, he promised to unite the party, and has noticeably moderated some of his views since his election. The younger Sæterbø sought to remove the right-wing government from office shortly after his elevation to the leadership, but circumstances forced him to withdraw his motion of no confidence. Ahead of the 3914 election, Labour nominated someone other than the party leader as its candidate for Statsminister for the first time when it anointed its deputy leader, Agathe Korneliussen, as its candidate due to her high popularity. However, the campaign unravelled when Korneliussen was forced to stand aside after corruption allegations. Labour suffered its worst ever defeat. Sæterbø took responsibility for the defeat and resigned, but after a month of chaos within the party, senior figures persuaded him to recontest the leadership which he had just vacated. However, he was challenged by three other candidates including radical leftist Henrik Pedersen, who defeated him, resulting in the exacerbation of division within the Labour Party. Dissolution In November 3915, Pedersen was challenged for the party leadership by Hanne Endal, who sought to return the party to a more centrist position. However, her challenge proved unsuccessful. Two days later Endal and two supporters resigned from the Labour Party to sit in the Storting under the label 'Independent Labour', leaving Pedersen at the head of a rump party with six seats in the Storting and dominated by hard-left socialists. Although Endal's resignation from the Storting to take up the post of central banker governor allow Labour to replace her with a seventh Labour lawmaker, it was nevertheless clear that Labour's difficulties put it beyond recovery. As a result, Pedersen initiated merger talks with Rasmus Sunde, the leader of the larger Socialist People's Party (SF). The talks were finalised in 3917, and the Labour parliamentary faction, except for Sæterbø and deputy leader Victoria Lorentzen, who decide to sit as independents, merged with the SF parliamentary faction in May after a plebiscite of the Labour membership approved the merger. The organisations wings of the parties merged in August. Electoral performance Leadership Category:Political parties in Kazulia